The building of the Congregational Church in Gorgan was put up for auction.

The building of the Congregational Church in Gorgan was put up for auction.

In recent weeks, a banner was placed on the building of the Congregational Church stating that the building was being sold with special conditions and facilities, which attracted many reactions.

This church is classified on the website of the institution supervised by Ali Khamenei with the use of “cultural-religious”. The church has been officially registered and operating as a church with legal permits since 1948. This church was run by the most well-known Protestant Christian leaders and after the suspicious killing of the last church leader in 1975, this church was also closed.

Now, a property that was confiscated by a government agency and, according to the people of Gorgan and Christians, stolen, was finally put up for auction on Tuesday, March 14, on the website of the Executive Headquarters of the Ali Khamenei Order (Property and Real Estate Organization) for 63 billion tomans, after no action was taken to purchase the property despite the installation of a banner.

According to the Article 18 organization, one of the leaders of this church, who was responsible for this church for a while, said in an exclusive interview with Article 18: "After hearing the news about the announcement of the sale of the Gorgan church, the same pain and bad feeling came over me that I experienced a few years ago when the Sharon Garden (church property in Karaj) was confiscated and seized , or when I first heard the news of the confiscation of the residential house of one of the founders of our churches." 

He added: "The bitter truth is that the Islamic Republic's government does not want or cannot recognize the existence of Persian-speaking Christians ."

The Islamic Republic regime has pressured and persecuted Christians throughout its years of rule, even though the holding of religious ceremonies by religious minorities in Iran is recognized and this agreement has been accepted and signed by the regime.